The first-ever exhibition on Madison, North Carolina, native and classical music trailblazer Mary Cardwell Dawson is closing Feb. 28 after almost a one-year run at the Charlotte Museum of History. The exhibition, “Open Wide the Door” explores Dawson’s life and the racial barriers she overcame to gain entrance into the opera world. She gave private music lessons, and in 1941 she founded the National Negro Opera Company in Pittsburgh. Its productions were performed before integrated audiences only, at Dawson’s insistence, which is why it never staged performances in North Carolina.
The exhibition also focuses on the contributions of other Black classical artists, such as company member Robert McFerrin Sr., who went on to become The Metropolitan Opera’s first Black male soloist. In an interview with WFAE’s Gwendolyn Glenn, Terri White, the museum’s CEO says a majority of the thousands of exhibition visitors surveyed had positive things to say about the exhibition.
Terri White: Well, first was that it didn't look like a typical exhibit that the museum would do. They said it looked more flushed out. It felt like you were entering a new space. There's a 20-minute video that they commented on how beautiful the music was. There's also an audio listening station where this was the first exposure to opera for a lot of the people.
Gwendolyn Glenn: Had many of them heard of Mary Cardwell Dawson and the fact that the National Negro Opera Company was the first successful commercial company founded by a Black person?
White: There has been a grand total of two people since this exhibit opened that I've spoken to where they had some inkling of the company’s existence. For everyone else, this was new information and this was exciting news to hear.
Glenn: What aspect of the exhibition did people seem to be drawn to more so than others?
White: Well, the highlight that people talk about are the costumes. We have some of the original costumes from the company. These are from the 1940s, '50s, and although they're simpler as far as the less ornamental, people are just amazed and excited to see something from almost 80 years ago on display.
Glenn: And the costumes — they made those themselves, didn't they, the dancers and Mary Cardwell Dawson?
White: They did. Often a lot of her students, instead of paying for music lessons, their mothers, aunts, grandmothers would sew costumes in exchange for their children receiving lessons. And a lot of the costumes we found have been repurposed clothes, so someone's formal dress that they no longer would wear would be converted into a tunic for 'Aida.' So this was all handmade.
Glenn: And this was because they didn't have big budgets and because of segregation, they were not able to get backers and that kind of thing, correct?
White: Correct. It was a constant stress from Mary Cardwell Dawson. It caused her to have two heart attacks, the second of which was fatal. But the company only lasted 21 years because they constantly faced underfunding or lack of funding because they were African American.
Glenn: Now, since the exhibition opened in March of last year, Dawson was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in October. Do you think that was overdue, and has she had any other inductions nationally?
White: I absolutely think it was overdue. I think this was a reckoning of North Carolina acknowledging one of its own coming back home and saying, 'hey, we acknowledge her legacy and we are proud.' As far as nationally, I don't know about specific inductions, but there has been this renaissance of people honoring and acknowledging her. The most famous of which is Denise Graves and her foundation really bringing the opera about Mary Cardwell Dawson around the country.
Glenn: And that was through the play that Denise Graves starred in that was here as well in Charlotte.
White: It was the start of a beautiful partnership with the museum and Opera Carolina in February 2024.
Glenn: Now, all of this, would you say it's a bit personal for you since you are from Pittsburgh, where Dawson lived and started the National Negro Opera Company?
White: It's incredibly personal for me. My grandmother's house is walking distance from the home that served as the (NNOC) headquarters, and this was a story I grew up learning about, and I just assumed other people do. And so when I kept hearing who was that? Who are you talking about? It just lit a fire in me to say you guys need to know how dope this lady was and why it's still relevant. And anybody of any background should be inspired by the story of a woman who was told this world is not for you and not only did she not accept it, she broke down barriers and found ways to work around that and to put herself not only in that world but at the very top of it.
Glenn: Now does the telling of this story through this exhibition feel different now than, say, when it opened? Considering the current political climate and the attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and also the teaching of African American history in schools?
White: You know, the museum has always been committed to telling the story of everybody in our exhibits, programs, etc., so for us internally it hasn't changed at all. It’s just what we do. We have a public obligation to be neutral, but also factual, and to talk about things that — through design or unintentional suppression of information — we're the place where you've always been able to come and learn more. I think museums, libraries and archives are the record and the truth of American society. So, we've always been here to be that supplement, and I think we're going to continue to do so — tell the truth and tell it as it is, not through rose-colored glasses.
The exhibition “Open Wide the Door: The Story of Mary Cardwell Dawson and the National Negro Opera Company,” is on view at the Charlotte Museum of History through Feb. 28.
